“Right,” Whelan said, wondering where this was heading.
“Well, maybe I’m just nuts, which wouldn’t surprise me at all, but…I saw this guy.”
“What guy?”
“He was standing across the street from your building. In a doorway by the corner there.”
“On the corner? Dutch, there’s always somebody on that corner. There’s a bunch of black kids who hang around there all the time, and I see a couple of old white guys there now and then, and…”
Dutch shook his head. “This guy was watching your building.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. He never took his eyes off it.”
Dutch watched his reaction and Whelan realized that the old man was both embarrassed to have been caught peeking around at the office and uneasy about what he’d seen.
“Describe him.”
“Ain’t much to describe. Small, like me. He was wearin’ a kinda wool coat…”
“An overcoat?”
“Yeah. An overcoat. A dark gray overcoat, and a wool cap. You know, with the snap on the brim.”
“Sure.”
“Mike used to wear one of them. I think all them old micks used to wear them hats. Hell, in the old days I guess we all did, but the Irish guys never give ’em up.”
“Did you get a look at his face?”
“Not a good one. Had his collar up and his hat kinda made it hard to see his face. A weird-looking guy, though. Skinny and pale, it looked like.”
“When was this, Dutch?”
“Same day you come over and we talked about the truck.”
Whelan thought for a moment. “Dutch, remember the guy we talked about, the one who panhandled you and Michael Minogue that time?”
“The one from the old neighborhood? Sure.”
“Could it have been him?”
He thought for a moment. “Clothes were different.”
“You can change clothes, Dutch. In ten seconds, you can change clothes.”
The old man met his eyes and nodded. “Coulda been. Anyway, I guess I screwed this up. I was kinda watching this guy and then I see he’s lookin’ my way. So I start walkin’ in the other direction, and when I look back, this guy’s movin’ away in the other direction. Toward the lake. It coulda been that other guy, Mr. Whelan.”
Whelan remembered what Gerry Costello had told him. “Did he walk with a limp?”
Dutch gave him a surprised look and then grinned. “Yeah, sure he did. And that guy that other time with Mike, he had a bum leg, I could tell that right off. You’re pretty good.”
“You’re pretty good yourself, Dutch. I’d sure be interested if he shows up again.”
The old man looked embarrassed. “You probably think I’m an old busybody, walking around by your office.”
“No. I put you up to it.”
“So what did you come here for today?”
“Oh, just…you know…”
Dutch fixed his unblinking bad-boy’s gaze on him and it was Whelan’s turn to be embarrassed. He could feel the color coming into his face.
“Tell you the truth, I was checking to see if you were still alive.”
An amused sparkle seemed to come into the old man’s face. “No shit? What, I was supposed to croak this week and nobody told me? From dinner last night, maybe. Fish sticks, they give us, like it’s Lent. Fish sticks. I coulda beat my pal Koski to death with mine. Fire the fucking things outta guns, you’d bring down buildings. I hate fucking fish sticks.”
“They were kind of a childhood nightmare for me, too. But you survived them.”
“Yeah. So how come you were worried?”
“Because the cops found a dead man down at the lake. It was an older man and the body wasn’t far from where they found Michael Minogue.”
“So you thought maybe I was down there sayin’ novenas over Mike and somebody killed me. Wait till I tell the other inmates.” Dutch grinned and gave him a loopy look, and Whelan laughed in spite of it all. “You think maybe I can’t take care of myself?”
“I think you’re probably a badass for your age, but this was done with a gun.”
“Well, thanks. I just don’t want you to think I’m some kinda old fart that can’t take care of himself.”
“I don’t think that. I was just afraid I’d gotten you into something.”
An odd look came into the old man’s eyes. In a bigger, younger man, Whelan would have said it was intimidation.
“Look at me, kiddo. I always been like this. I was always the runt. In my house, in the old neighborhood, at school. There was always somebody beatin’ my ass. Then one day when I was about thirteen, fourteen, this big asshole picks a fight with me over a ball game. Just to be an asshole, really. Wasn’t much of a fight: he stayed out there at long range and we boxed, and he landed all his punches and I couldn’t do shit. He cut me over my eye and I had a fat lip and my nose was bleedin,’ I looked like fuckin’ Roland LaStarza when he fought Marciano. Remember him? He was a bleeder, LaStarza.”
“I remember.”
“Anyhow, this fucker decided he was gonna rub my face in it. He grabbed me in a headlock and pulled me down on the ground and he landed on me with his fat ass and he was gonna pound me till my face was hamburger, and I knew it was just to humiliate me in front of all the kids watching. And I couldn’t take it. I went a little bit crazy. I dug my finger in his eye and I clawed at his nose with my nails, got my fingers right up his nostrils. Then he started to choke me, and I knew I couldn’t get his hand off my throat. So I bit into it. I don’t mean I bit him like kids do, I bit into it. I tore off a big piece of skin and he started howlin’ and whacking at me, and I grabbed him with both arms around the neck and pulled him to me and I got his ear between my teeth and I bit through it. I bit through it and I tore at it to make sure I got it right. I elbowed him in the head and I got up and kicked him and I was picking shit up off the street and throwin’ it at him and then my friends got nervous and grabbed me. They had to sew this fucker’s ear back on, and he had blurred vision for a week, and my nail marks on his nose and my teeth marks on his arm. And nobody ever tried to do nothing like that to me again.
“So now I’m an old man and I look like somebody helps me piss in the morning, but if they come for me and they got anything less than a gun, I’m gonna leave marks.”
“This one has a gun.”
“So he shoots me with it. Then I’ll stick it up his ass. I give you my word as a gentleman.”
Whelan laughed and got to his feet. “You’ve convinced me. Just do me a favor, don’t go bogarting around the neighborhood. If you see the guy in the coat again, or the truck—”
“I’ll get on the horn.”
“Good enough.”
Whelan was pleased to see that other tenants were at work on a Saturday. There were lights on in several of the first-floor offices and he could hear voices. On his floor, he was surprised to hear Nowicki’s voice coming out of A-OK Novelties. Apparently this was a hard day in the novelty business. Nowicki sounded flustered.
He brought in his mail and tossed all of it in the wastebasket and tried Bauman again, without success.
He hung up the phone and thought about what he’d learned from Dutch Sturdevant. On an impulse he crossed to the window and looked out at the street corner. There was no one standing in doorways keeping him under surveillance today. Still, there was something about Dutch’s account that nagged at him.
He decided to have a cup of coffee and think on it. He walked out of his office, shutting the door with one hand while he wrestled himself into his jacket. With his back still to the hall, he realized he had company. He froze for a moment, then caught the strong scent of cigar smoke and Right Guard and said, “Hello, Bauman.”
“Shhhh.” He turned and saw Bauman crouched low, his ear to the door of A-OK Novelties, his face red and swollen with his struggle to keep from laughing. He looked up at Whelan, held out a hand for silence, and resumed his eavesdropping.
<
br /> Inside the office of A-OK Novelties, Mr. Nowicki was engaged in one of his more heartfelt business conversations. Much of it was delivered in the intense, muttered style of speech that indicated the speaker had much to hide, but the texture was peppered with Nowicki’s strikingly original use of profanity.
Whelan moved a couple of steps closer so that he could hear Nowicki. The little potbellied man seemed to be talking through gritted teeth to someone named Ross. He and Ross had a problem and, if Nowicki had sized up the matter accurately, the problem was Ross’s sad deficiency in the area of personal honor.
“I go to the wall for you, Ross, to the wall, and what do you do? You fucking screw me, Ross. I’ll tell you what’s wrong with you, Ross: you’re a lowlife. You’re small-time and you’re always gonna be small-time ’cause you screw the people that pulled you up by your fucking bootstraps and made you somebody. And let me—”
Here Ross apparently made a case for himself. There was a ten-second pause and Nowicki exploded with “You small-time prick!” and then seven or eight profanities strung together like bad lights on a Christmas tree.
Bauman’s big body shook with suppressed laughter and he looked at Whelan with tears in his eyes. “This guy’s an artist,” he whispered.
From within, Nowicki interrupted his profanity to do something, and when he resumed his tirade, it was clear that he’d taken time to bite into a sandwich. He listened to Ross for a moment and then spoke through his tuna salad.
“Fine. By Monday, no later. And gimme some shit that I can sell or I’ll have your ass.” Then Nowicki slammed the phone down with a loud crack and muttered, “Asshole.”
Whelan grabbed Bauman by the elbow and half-beckoned, half-dragged him into the office.
“So why don’t you just give in to your curiosity and break into his office the way you’ve broken into mine half a dozen times. Then you’ll know what ‘novelties’ are.”
Bauman grinned. “Hey, quit casting whattya call ’ems on your neighbor.”
“Aspersions.”
“Give the guy a break, Whelan. He’s just a small businessman whose suppliers let him down. He’s the backbone of the economy. Besides, I got a pretty good idea what this guy means by ‘novelties’ already.”
Bauman helped himself to a cup of water from the cooler and sat on the edge of Whelan’s desk. “You keep callin’ me, people are gonna think we’re having an affair. So what did you want to talk about?”
“The body down at the lake, among other things.”
“What about it?”
“You tell me. All I know is what I read in the paper.”
Bauman gave him an amused look. “You saying you didn’t get an accurate account from your local rag?”
“I just figured I could get a little more from a personal interview with the celebrity cop quoted in the story. Detective Albert Bauman. How about a little help here, Bauman?”
“This don’t have a thing to do with you. We got a stiff. Jogger found the body. Probably didn’t even stop jogging—they never do. I got this mental picture of a guy running in place while he checks for a pulse.”
“And you’re certain there’s no connection between this killing and the other one?”
“That guy was shot, this guy was shot. That’s it. Close range, powder burns on his hair and his neck and his collar. What else you want to know?”
“He saw the killer.”
“Maybe he got a look, maybe he was sleeping.”
“What did he look like?”
A little smile appeared on Bauman’s face. “A ratty-lookin’ guy. Not a big guy, kinda bony.”
“How old?”
“Hard to say with some of ’em. This guy, I’d make him fifty something, sixty, max. Brown hair with a lotta gray, brown eyes. Funny eyes, real close together.”
Whelan watched him for a moment and said, “Wearing?”
Bauman shrugged. “Red baseball cap and a blue windbreaker.”
Whelan met his gaze for several moments and tried to show nothing. He bit his tongue to hold back the last question. He could see from the little look of satisfaction that Bauman already had the corpse ID’d, and Whelan doubted he was going to share it.
I refuse to bite, he told himself.
He shrugged. “Okay, you’re on top of it.” Then after a moment, he added, “Homeless guy maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“Have any of his stuff with him?”
“No. Some of ’em don’t carry anything.”
“Getting colder out at night,” Whelan said.
“Some of ’em don’t carry anything with ’em, Whelan.”
“You’re probably right.”
Bauman watched him through a squint and then smiled. “I hear you were out monitoring the community again last night.”
“I was a bystander.”
“Not what Mike Shea thinks. Michaeleen thinks you’re some kinda agitator. You show up and there’s a beef.” Bauman laughed. “Old Michaeleen’s got that Irish way with words: he called you ‘a catalyst for commotion.’ I like that.”
“I had nothing to do with it. Couple of old guys who didn’t like each other, nothing more.”
“A ‘donnybrook,’” he called it. Broken windows, damaged cars, punches thrown, crowbars flyin’ through the air. It sounded pretty good, Whelan. And no, I don’t think you were just standing there.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Who were these guys?”
“I can tell you that one of them, Landis, is a Realtor who knew the guy I was trying to find.”
“Was? So you’re finished.”
“Yeah. He’s dead.”
Bauman nodded. “Then these guys knew Minogue, right?”
“Well, one of them did. They grew up together.”
“So you still got your nose in my business.”
“Not from where I’m sitting. Anyhow, the guy I’m looking for was killed about ten years ago.” Bauman looked ready to continue the argument and Whelan headed him off. “And I need a little help with that.”
“Help? What kinda help?”
“I need you to run something for me on the guy. ‘Death Cases’ file. Joseph Colleran. Killed in an auto accident, October nineteenth, 1975.”
“You got balls, Whelan,” Bauman said, but he took out a pencil stub and a small spiral notebook. “If you already got cause of death, what are you looking for?”
“I’m curious.”
Bauman fixed him with a dark look and said, “Any of your other work I can do for you, O Great Sleuth?”
“As a matter of fact, you can: the other guy in the fight last night. Hoegstra’s his name. Run him.”
“They’ll already have that done.”
“Then it won’t be any trouble for you, Bauman.”
Bauman muttered. “Shit,” and began writing in his notebook. “Spell it,” he said.
Whelan gave him the spelling. “This guy did time. Find out when he came back and if he’s been involved in anything. Mostly I’m interested in knowing what years he was out on the street.”
Bauman gave him an irritated look and Whelan said, “I’ll buy you lunch.” The detective gave him an almost imperceptible nod and got up.
“Anything you find out that’s even remotely connected with police business, you give it up, hear?”
“Absolutely.”
“Don’t say ‘absolutely’ like you just sold me a zircon ring. And don’t call me no more, arright?”
“Deal.”
After Bauman had left, Whelan sat at his desk and thought about their conversation. Bauman was having a good time with his little secrets but by the end of it, he’d reverted to form, he was Bauman being irritated. Not Bauman about to make a nice collar or Bauman with all the answers. He hadn’t cracked this one yet, and Whelan had a feeling each of them was holding information vital to the other.
He went over the previous day’s rocky itinerary and the people he’d questioned.
Hoegstr
a, Landis, and Fritz Pollard: I got the bum’s rush in three different places, he thought.
He toyed with the idea of calling Mrs. O’Mara and convinced himself that he’d be in a better position to discuss things if he knew more. Besides, he reasoned that he was not going to charge her for anything past yesterday.
Outside, the rain seemed to have let up for a while and he decided to go out for a walk. If he wasn’t near the phone, he couldn’t call her.
He’d gotten a block and a half when the sky opened up again. His nearest sanctuary was the House of Zeus, and they were waiting for him.
Three customers sat at window tables and stared out at the street, and Whelan would have bet all three had gotten caught in the rain and now believed themselves to be trapped like the denizens of an old Rod Serling screenplay, stuck in the House of Zeus till time wore itself out.
“Mr. Detective Whelan!” Rashid yelled out, and Gus emerged from the dark kitchen carrying a piece of what appeared to be raw skirt steak. He tossed it on a table, wiped his hands on his apron and produced a newspaper clipping.
“You see?” Gus waved the clipping at him. “We are in the newspaper, with picture!”
Rashid flashed four dozen teeth in a grin and opened his arms wide. “We are famous. Everyone will know our restaurant.”
“There are two ways of looking at that, Rashid. The reviewer seems to have had a few problems.”
Rashid shrugged. “Everybody gets sick. I’m kinda sick today.”
“The flu, this one had,” Gus added.
Rashid gave Whelan a benign smile. “I am owner of restaurant, I know about these things. All publicity is good, even bad publicity. Bad publicity announces restaurant to public. And it is free, this one.”
“Yes,” Gus agreed, “free.” He spoke the word as though it had talismanic properties.
“You ought to put it up in the window.”
“Yes, we gonna do that. I maybe scratch out couple sentences, some not nice words, upset customers.”
“Nice to see you don’t hold a grudge.”
Rashid shrugged magnanimously. Gus broke into a rare smile. “And we talked to our cousin.”
The Riverview Murders Page 20